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Re: ash missing 'getopts' builtin


On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 06:46:28PM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 08:57:41AM -0700, Dario Alcocer wrote:
> > In fact, I'd say that getopts is almost necessary for scripting,
> > because its inclusion allows scripts to be on an equal footing with
> > compiled programs, in that both can accept command line options. This
> > means I can write small programs as shell scripts instead of as a
> > compiled program; this is entirely consistent with traditional Unix
> > programming philosophy, which encourages the use of shell scripts for
> > small programs.
> 
> There is that problem left that getopts isn't quite "plain old sh".
> It's a System V extension while earlier version only had getopt
> (which is available as external command).

Excellent point. Upon further reflection, I see that my so-called Bourne
shell 'compatible' scripts aren't really. I should be using the external
getopt with the 'set -- `getopt`' idiom instead. I didn't realize I was
relying on a non-standard feature.

Thanks for your time. I ended up learning something new about shell
programming.

-- 
Dario Alcocer -- Sr. Software Developer, Helix Digital Inc.
alcocer@helixdigital.com -- http://www.helixdigital.com

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